I’m going to tell you at once what I dare say you’ve suspected all along, that Spellman was an amazingly successful manufacturer of evidence. He couldn’t use it always, but when he did, the play was a marvel. Everything came to that man in what is known as a flash. In the matter of bogus evidence he not only saw instantly where it would come in, but almost on the same ignition had the most elaborate defenses figured out for it with every point protected. No matter where those sharps and detectives who were after him dug in and followed back the lines, they couldn’t find a thing to get hold of. Witnesses had actually seen what they testified to—the circumstances and surroundings and objects spoken of and dates and time of day given, etc., stood every test. Yet notwithstanding the outcome of these investigations, I have to tell you that Mr. Spellman’s downfall resulted from a faulty piece of work in one of his manufactured-evidence structures. He knew that it was faulty and that they’d have it on him in the end, but the play did what it was intended to do, which was to hold open a loophole for escape just long enough so his client could dive through it. To save a comrade who’d once saved him—that was what drove him to it. The outcome, which he plainly saw, didn’t come within a thousand miles of making him hesitate. What this man, whose name was Morrison, had done for him or what he had saved him from, never came out; but it must have been something worth while. Morrison was in bad. If the case should come to trial he’d stand no chance. Even Spellman couldn’t see any way out. His only hope lay in quick action. I give you an idea of Spellman’s play in this case to show you how it came about that he was eliminated from Chicago’s fetid life, and, as Hugo J. Pentecost, turned loose upon a more or less helpless world. The quick action for the rescue of Bill Morrison from a more than serious predicament involved the buying up of an obscure movie actor named McArdle, doing small bits at the Essanay Studio on the North Side, who looked enough like Morrison to be his twin. Pentecost had used the movies in certain of his activities for a number of years, having found that field of endeavor packed with evidence possibilities that had never been worked; and in consequence he not only knew a lot of people employed in it, but he had quite a few of his own men scattered about in various studios. He remembered this McArdle on the instant and must have paid him ten or twelve thousand to disappear utterly for six weeks and turn over everything he owned, including his name, clothing, diary, letters, photographs, accounts, contracts with Essanay, and, in fact, everything there was, to him.